Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a driver customizable blind spot display method and apparatus and, more particularly, to a driver customizable blind spot display method and apparatus in which recommended mirror setting information for minimization of blind spots based on positions of the driver's eyes is calculated and automatically set and recommended mirror setting results are displayed on a screen, which enables a driver to directly view blind spots.
Discussion of the Related Art
Recent rapid development of information technology (IT) is exerting a great influence on the vehicle industry. Vehicle manufacturers are developing vehicle safety improvements and driver conveniences by grafting various IT technologies and sensor technologies onto vehicles. Particularly, for safer driving, it is important to appropriately adjust angles of various mirrors equipped within an extraneous to vehicles and to maintain the adjusted angles of the mirrors. Currently, many vehicles employ manual or remote mirror adjustment methods using mirror angle adjustment switches.
These mirror angle adjustment methods, however, require manual driver operation, thus causing difficulty in accurate mirror angle adjustment and time required for mirror angle adjustment. In addition, when a driver of a vehicle changes, the new driver is required to adjust angles of mirrors manually or remotely, increasing user inconvenience. In addition, accurately adjusting angles of mirrors in a stationary state of vehicles increases adjustment difficult, and mirror angle adjustment during driving increases potential vehicle collisions.
As solutions related to the above-described problems, various methods of adjusting angles of mirrors in an automated manner have recently been developed. These methods may be broadly classified into partially automatic methods and fully automatic methods. In the partially automatic methods, when one mirror is manually adjusted, one or all of the other mirrors are automatically adjusted. In fully automatic methods, all of three mirrors are automatically adjusted. Many partially automatic and fully automatic mirror adjustment methods are adapted to calculate angles of mirrors corresponding to positions of the driver's eyes by extracting the positions of the driver's eyes using various position and angle sensors, image sensing devices, image processors, and the like. Owing to recent development of computer science as well as improved precision and low price of optical devices, sensors and the like, there are suggested various other automatic mirror angle adjustment methods. However, there are no methods of the related art that allow drivers to view blind spots and viewable spots with their eyes via automatic mirror angle adjustment as described above.